As a sales manager, it can be difficult for you to manage on-field operations while creating and demarcating territories and mapping customers on the map. But, if you have a Dynamics CRM, half of your operations are already automated. Its features like customization, smart insights, productivity, and security streamline the operations. However, to make the most out of Dynamics CRM, you can integrate a Bing Map Rest API to scale up your business.
Here’s how you can use Dynamics 365 Map for your on-field team.
1. Record Mapping
Instead of locating customer data in a CRM and then tracing them on a separate map, you can directly plot your records on a CRM map and visualize it.
By integrating Bing Map Rest API with your CRM mapping tool, you can filter the data based on region, drawing, proximity, territory, etc. and view it easily. This saves the time of the on-field sales reps and helps them locate the potential leads quickly.
2. Route Optimization
Suppose that your sales field is in a meeting with a potential client and has three more to attend in a day. With record mapping, they located the three leads on the map. What now?
They need to find the one closest to their area and reach them. They can check the distance of each in Google maps, but that’s daunting. Hence, Dynamics 365 map provides an in-built route optimization feature.
With it, you can create and share the optimized routes with your on-field team. You can help them cover more customers in a short time and boost their productivity. Also, instead of investing their time and efforts in finding routes and planning to reach on time, they can spend time brainstorming more effective strategies to turn leads into members.
3. Progress Tracking
Do you know that you can use Bing maps to track your on-field team’s performance?
Yes, neither your on-field team has to report your activity, nor do you need to call them and ask about the task’s status. You can actively see their check-in and check-out time, track their progress, view their tasks, appointments, etc., in real-time. Moreover, you can trace their records and visualize them on a map on a daily basis.
With a progress tracking feature, you can enable your on-field team members to tag geo coordinates and activity time while checking in. You can calculate the average time spent on a meeting or a task and focus on the ones with better performance – everything visualized on a map.
You can also enable them to add notes while check-out, helping optimize their efforts.
4. Live Tracking
As a manager, it’s important to know about your team’s whereabouts.
With the live tracking feature of the Dynamics CRM map, you can stay on top of your team’s activities. You can know their location, upcoming meetings and even help them with the shortest routes in real-time. You don’t need to wait for the day to end to know their task routine. The map integration provides you with location history to view the locations a user has visited on a particular date. With these details, you can get a clear idea and plan your future strategies accordingly.
If a situation demands – say, a new lead gets added at the last minute or a potential client steps out; you can add or remove new activities or routes. This way, you can minimize the waste of time and maximize the output.
Also, you can allow your sales reps to configure the default map options according to their requirements. They can personalize how the data would show up on their map screen.
5. Targeted Location Marketing
Not every customer is the same. A marketing strategy that worked for one may or may not entice another. Hence, the mapping tool provides you with territory management and targeted location marketing features.
With territory management, you can place your customers into various categories based on their preferences, demand, location, or other factors. And accordingly, you can define territories. Say customers from one geographic location are in territory A. By defining territories, you can analyze which area is performing well and where you need to focus on. You can prioritize targeting leads and accounts based on it.
With the marketing team’s help, you can then launch the sales strategies to get the best out of it.
The best thing is you can assign the territories to your sales reps directly from the CRM. That’s called quick decision-making.
Overall, you can use Dynamics CRM to streamline your operations, increase productivity and boost sales. And the Bing Map Rest API integrations enhance its functionalities.
How to Integrate Bing Map Rest API
The first step is to create a Bing Map account and then the API key.
For the API key, you need to log in to Bing Map Dev Center. Next, navigate to “My Account” and click on “My Keys.” Fill the form, create your account, and get your API key details.
There are two types of Bing Key – the basic key for small businesses and enterprise key, which is suitable for large businesses.
You can even customize it based on your business requirements.
For On-Premise Organizations:
- Go to Setting, and click on Administration
- Select System Settings
- Select General Tab and navigate to Enable Bing Maps
- Enter the license key and click OK
Online Organizations:
- After navigating to Enable Bing Maps, click on Show Bing Maps on forms.
- Choose Yes or No, and click OK.
To integrate the Bing Map Rest API with the Dynamics CRM mapping tool, you can take the help of development services.